


Femmes Fatales

by Acts_of_Tekla



Series: TTSS_Kink Prompt Fills [1]
Category: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John Le Carré
Genre: 5 Times, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Community: ttss_kink, Drabble Collection, Gen, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-02-10 21:50:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2041500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acts_of_Tekla/pseuds/Acts_of_Tekla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In another universe, the Circus' top spies were women.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Femmes Fatales

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a ttss_kink prompt and by [Chimerari's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chimerari/pseuds/Chimerari) gender-bend fan cast [livejournal post](https://chimerari.livejournal.com/31620.html).
> 
> In this alternate universe, Petra Guillam is played by Uma Thurman, Billie Haydon by Helen Mirren, Jamie Prideaux by Meryl Strepe, and Georgia Smiley by Judi Dench. (Also featured are Maggie Smith as Control and Eva Green as Ricki Tarr.) Plot and characterization-wise, it's a mix of book, movie, and mini-series 'verses.

**1\. Petra Guillam**

Disheveled, hungry, and wedged in the corner of a train bench in third class pretending to sleep against the window (but actually using the reflection to watch the corridor) – apparently, this was life on the run for a blown spy. She wouldn’t have known; her cover had held solid for her entire career.

Until now.

Breathe in, breathe out, check the corridor, make sure her distinctive red hair was still covered (thank god it was winter and she’d been carrying a scarf), don’t wonder how they knew, don’t think about how you barely got away, just focus on getting home.

 

**2\. Billie Haydon**

Karla’s plan was, quite simply, sheer brilliance. Billie had seen the shape of it when Jamie’d visited before she left, and mentioned Control’s suspicions. Czecho was obviously a trap, and not just for Control, but for the entire Circus. There was no possibility of Control keeping her position afterwards, and using Jamie cleared Billie of suspicion while also allowing her to openly campaign against Control. When the dust cleared, Karla would be standing over the ruins of the Circus, and nobody but Billie would be able to see anything other than the illusion of stability.

Sacrificing Jamie was simply unfortunate.

 

**3\. Jamie Prideaux**

Jamie had never been honey trap material, even in her youth. Too serious, perhaps; she didn’t have Billie’s beauty or Guillam’s glamour or Tarr’s raw sexuality. Still, she had once been a handsome, athletic woman; and now she was scarred, hunched over, and fairly certain that half the staff (as well as all the students) imagined that she was a fairy tale witch. The caravan wasn’t as tempting as a gingerbread house but it did travel, albeit on wheels instead of chicken legs.

She wondered if Karla had feared Baba Yaga as a child, or if she’d instead feared him.

 

**4\. Georgia Smiley**

Society had been stunned when Lord Andrew Sercomb – handsome, intelligent, darling of the “Set” – had rejected a bevy of debutants in favor of a distressingly frumpy middle-class bluestocking with a marked tendency to get lost in thought in the middle of small talk and blink owlishly from behind thick-rimmed glasses when subtly insulted. She might have been pretty, if she found more flattering glasses and a decent tailor, but that was hardly a reason for marriage.

When asked for his reasons, Lord Andrew would only say that he liked women of intelligence, and smile as if at a private joke.

 

**5\. Petra Guillam**

_They’ll be watching you now…_

Petra unlocked the door, greeted her cat, and checked her security measures. Esterhase’s hoods hadn’t broken in today, but it was likely they would soon.

_Best tie up any loose ends…_

She only had one secret from the Circus, in a file hidden in a false lid of the silverware chest. It was a good hiding place, but she couldn’t afford the risk.

She lit a fire with steady hands and fed the pages into it one by one:

…the Swiss birth certificate…

…the adoption papers…

…and the only picture she had of her daughter.


End file.
